• journals@UrMEL
  • UrMEL
  • Imprint
  • Privacy
  • Login
    • DE
  • advanced search
Search the entire inventorySearch within the journalSearch within the volume
  1. A-Z
  2. Jena Economic Resea...
  3. Volume 15
  4. Long-Term Decline o...
  1. « Zurück
  2. Weiter »
Long-Term Decline of Regions and the Rise of Populism: The Case of Germany
Author

Fritsch, Michael

Greve, Maria

Wyrwich, Michael

published
Tue May 11 2021
Number of discussion paper

2021-006

keyword(s)

economic development

economic history

Populism

territorial inequality

abstract

What characterizes regions where right-wing populist parties are relatively successful? A prominent hypothesis proposed in recent literature claims that places that are “left behind” or “do not matter” are a breeding ground for the rise of populism. We re-examine this hypothesis by analyzing the rise of populism in Germany. Our results suggest that the high vote shares of populist parties are not only associated with low regional levels of welfare as such, but also with the long-term decline of a region’s relative welfare. Hence, it is not the regions that do “not matter” that are most prone to the rise of populism, but the regions that once mattered, but are in long-term decline. Moreover, we find that regional knowledge represents an important channel through which the historical decline in wealth explains voting behavior in German regions.

article pub. typess JER
Research article
article languages JER
Englisch
JEL-Classification for JER
R1 - General Regional Economics; R11 - Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, and Changes ; D72 - Models of Political Processes: Rent-Seeking, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior ; N94 - Europe: 1913–